


All we do is break up (and make up)

by Stuckyl0v3r



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Both Erik and Charles need a hug, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, M/M, Smitten Charles, Smitten Erik, True Love, dumb boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stuckyl0v3r/pseuds/Stuckyl0v3r
Summary: "So instead of making the most out of this next months, because you don't know where either of you is going to end up, you decided to stay away from each other to get used to the feeling?" Hank summed up, stopping in front of the class. Charles nodded his head confidently and beamed at him, but somehow his smile didn't reach his eyes."Yes, something like that."Well, that was the most idiotic plan Hank's ever heard.





	All we do is break up (and make up)

Charles and Erik have been together since forever. You can't say Charles without Erik, and the other way around. They came as a package - their friends knew that, their families knew that and the whole high school including the teachers knew that. It was something people were used to, seeing both of them in the hallways, or in class, or being cute at lunch, sharing food and loving touches.  
So it came as a surprise, really more like a shock, when they started to arrive sepparately at school, have lunch at the other ends of the table and not speak in hushed tones in classes - even though they were still sitting by each other. Hank, Charles' good friend and his sister's boyfriend, noticed first, catching Charles awkwardly after lunch when the two of them were headed to the advanced science class. Hank was a private person, but a good friend nevertheless, he didn't like mingling in other's people business and he figured that if something happened between them, either Charles or Erik would speak up. 

But, as was said, he was a good friend and he would hate himself for seeing his friends suffer and not do anything about it.

"Charles?"

"Yes?" the other boy replied distractedly, eyes cast far away and a gloomy aura around him. It was like his whole mood was trying to push Charles away.

"Is everything alright with you and Erik? You seem... off."

"Oh." Charles said, turning to look at Hank with a little, bitter smile on his face. "It's nothing, we decided to take a break."

"A break?"

"From our relationship."

"You broke up?"

"No, Hank, we're on a break. Like Ross and Rachel from FRIENDS." 

"I don't follow." Hank frowned, he wasn't up to that with modern pop culture. Even though FRIENDS sounded vaguely familiar. Charles smiled patiently at him. 

"We've been together since forever, right? We have no idea how we truly are, because we kind of developed the sense of unity and rubbed off on the other with little quirks and so on. And well, college is barely a few months away, what if I don't get into Oxford and Erik does, or the other way around and we can't go together and share a dorm like we planned on doing, we're not going to cope really well if that would be the first time we are separated. And I know that Erik is not going to ask me to stay, or follow him somewhere else, and I'm not going to do that either, I can't take his future away from him. So we decided to take a break and not talk to each other outside of school and whenever is really necessary."

"So instead of making the most out of this next months, because you don't know where either of you is going to end up, you decided to stay away from each other to get used to the feeling?" Hank summed up, stopping in front of the class. Charles nodded his head confidently and beamed at him, but somehow his smile didn't reach his eyes. 

"Yes, something like that."

Well, that was the most idiotic plan Hank's ever heard.

 

_You're both idiots_. - Raven

_Please tell me that you're not actually doing this_. - Moira

_Is that why Erik looked like he could bite my head off at lunch?_ \- Sean

_You're not going to last a WEEK, LET ALONE A COUPLE OF WEEKS._ \- Alex.

_For all of both of your IQs combined, that's stupid as fuck._ \- Raven again

_Charles? Is Edie, are you and Erik fighting, my love? Is he treating you bad? Do I need to kick his butt?!_ \- Erik's mom. 

Charles sighed, rubbing a finger on his forehead to ease the blinding headache that was starting to form behind his eyes. Seemed like Hank told his sister what was happening between him and Erik and of course Raven couldn't be trusted with anything and she probably went and told all of their friends about their little experiment. He replied as politely as possible to them, adding a shortened version to send Edie because he was sure Erik didn't tell her anything about what was happening. 

He thought about Alex's message and chuckled, because they were going to last more than a week, that's for sure. Of course, it was only 36 hours since they decided to take the break and of course, it was weird not having Erik pick him up in the morning and drive him to school and kiss him senseless in front of the science building or in front of the French cabinet before they went on with their respective schedules, but he could get used to it, right? It's not like they were co-dependent, they could manage with only seeing and spoking briefly. It was, after all, for their own good. A simple experiment to decide if they could live without one another, in case something happened and they couldn't get into Oxford together. 

Piece of cake.

 

It was not a piece of cake. It was the worst, foulest, piece of cake he ever tasted in his life - 

\- metaphorically speaking.

After a week without Erik, Charles literally felt like going crazy. He hated not being able to go and bury himself in Erik's arms at the end of a bad day, or simply kiss him between bites of food at lunch, or hang out after school to do homework and make love. 

He lost his appetite, lost his interest in talking to his friends and all he did was sulk and look through Erik's pictures on his phone the whole day, and cry over screenshoted conversations of cute things Erik said to him. 

God, he was pathetic.

But at least he wasn't the only pathetic one out of this equation. 

Erik's mom, Edie, texted him three more times since he offered the explanation to check up on him, demanding both of them to end that silly thing because, although she hasn't seen Charles in a week, she could swore that he was no better than Erik who apparently turned into a apathetic shell of broody man that snapped at everything that came his way.  
Charles knew what kind of person Erik was, he was foul tempered, quick to anger and often misunderstood and badly mannered. However, he turned into a puddle of goo, a lovely, smitten boy that smiled too much whenever Charles was around. 

And Erik knew what kind of person Charles was, despite growing up with Raven in a privileged household, Charles never had the pleasure of hearing a good word from his parents, or for someone to comfort him when he wasn't feeling well. The fact that he lasted a week without hearing Erik say that he loved him was killing Charles' slowly. 

Although they agreed not to do such things, he looked for Erik on the football field, when he knew that his boyfriend had practice, only to see Erik resting in the bleachers, gasping heavily for air with his head hanging between his shoulders. 

"Why aren't you there playing? What is the team going to do without their captain?" Charles asked, dropping on the bench, next to Erik but still maintaining some sort of distance between them. Erik's head snapped up, turning to look at Charles, his breath catching in his throat. 

"Hi." Erik whispered, visibly melting at the sight of his boyfriend next to him. Close enough to touch.

"Hello, my love." Charles whispered back, moving to caress the sweaty curls that raised on Charles' head. "What happened?"

"I snapped at coach Howlett and he made me run." Erik turned his head in Charles' touch, purring softly. 

"Why did you snap at him?"

"Because I'm angry. Because this is the most stupid thing we've ever done in our lives. And we've done some stupid shit together, Charles." Erik admitted, his face scrunching up in pain.

"Is this your way of telling me you miss me?" Charles tried to tease, ignoring the knot of emotions swelling in his throat. Erik caught the hand that was resting on top of his head, tugging it to his mouth and kissing his wrist, the center of his palm and his knuckles softly. It made butterflies swim in Charles' stomach. They probably shared twenty thousand kisses like these, by now, yet he couldn't help but feel like it was the first one. 

"Sometimes I miss you so bad I can't breathe." Erik whispered against his skin, before dragging him by his hand and enveloping Charles' in his arms for a hug. 

"That's cheating." Charles murmured brokenly, burying his face in Erik's neck and breathing him in deeply. "We're still doing this, right?"

"I guess... if you want to." 

"Yeah, we should continue." as hard as it was, he pulled back, pressing a soft kiss on Erik's mouth. "I love you, so much it hurts." 

He stood up and Erik smiled at him, his eyes soft and full of love for Charles. 

"I love you too, Schatz. Don't you ever forget that."

 

Turns out it took only that hug and that little kiss and the shared I love you for Charles to make up his mind and put them both out of their misery. It was a little after ten when he took the keys to his car, stumbling over Raven in his rush to get to the front door and drive to Erik's house. 

"Where the hell are you going? It's late!" she shouted after him. 

"To see Erik." he shouted back to which his sister replied with a snort: _fucking finally._

It was a fifteen minutes drive from Charles' house to Erik's and he made it in seven, breaking any safety law and the speed limit. His mother's car wasn't in the driveway, she probably had the graveyard shit at the hospital. He parked how he could, leaving enough space for when he came home in the morning and he ran to the front door, banging his fists on it until Erik answered.  
When he finally did, Charles tackled him, circling his arms and his legs around his boyfriend's tall frame like an octopus and without meaning to he burst into sobs.

"Charles?! Schatz, what's wrong? Are you alright, are you hurt?" Erik asked desperately, trying to make Charles to look at him. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for being so damn stupid and making us both go through this. I don't want to spend another minute without you, because I can't. I've missed you so much, you have no idea." 

"Oh, Schatzi." Erik whispered, closing the door and moving them towards the living room. There was a blanket and a pillow on the couch, and the T.V. was running on a horror movie. Erik fell on the couch, making it so Charles was comfortable and still securely in his lap. "I've missed you too. I thought I was going crazy." 

"I know, I know, I'm sorry! Don't ever let me do something like this again." 

Erik let out a wet laugh. 

"I won't, promise." 

Charles breathed in and out and for a few minutes the both of them enjoyed the feeling of being close again, in each other's arms. After a while Charles looked up at Erik, framing his face with his hands and kissing him everywhere. 

"You are the love of my life." Charles whispered against his lips. "And I don't care about anything else if I have you by my side. I would follow you anywhere, Erik. Either at Oxford, or Columbia or the other end of the world. I promise." 

The answering smile on Erik's face and the kiss he dragged Charles in was enough for an answer. A silent promise coming from Erik that he would do the same.

 

In the end both of them got into Oxford, Columbia and NYU and as much as both of them wanted to go to Oxford at first, neither really wanted to leave their respective families behind, so they decided to go with Columbia. 

"It's close and they have excellent engineering and science programs." Charles said at their graduation, when Moira asked why they decided to go to Columbia. 

"It's Ivy League." Erik replied with a smirk. 

"Sure, that too." 

"Have you decided if you wanted to live in a dorm?" 

"Actually, we've been looking at off-campus apartments and we found something at a great price and with everything we needed." 

"Cool, that means I can visit!" Raven clapped excitedly. 

"Guys, you're basically married." Sean interrupted, looking between the two of them. 

Erik grinned goofily at Charles, pressing a kiss on his cheek. 

"Not quite, but soon, hopefully." Erik replied, and Charles felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. Of course, they already had everything planned out and the next step was marriage, after finishing college, but knowing Erik, he was going to pop the question, out of the blue sooner rather than later.

 

He was right.  
Erik gave him a ring in the middle of their second year at Columbia, and Charles couldn't wait to finally call Erik his husband. 


End file.
